Boris Johnson ironically announced on “freedom day” that vaccine passports will soon be required in England.
Anyone who wants to go to a nightclub from the end of September will have to show proof of having received two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine.
“Other venues where large crowds gather” could also be made to adopt the checks.
Johnson did not explain why it is apparently safe to pour into nightclubs now, but a vaccine certificate will be required in two months’ time.
Dominic Cummings also revealed in a BBC interview this week that Boris Johnson blocked tightening Covid-19 restrictions as cases rose last autumn. Johnson thought people dying were “essentially all over 80”.
He had wanted to let coronavirus “wash through the country”, Cummings said.
It’s predominantly younger people who will now face rules that don’t apply to others.
And vaccine passports will restrict people who haven’t had been jabbed. They will disproportionately affect black and Asian people. Rates for the first vaccination dose were lower among all ethnic minority groups compared to white people.
These are also low among people living in deprived areas, unemployed people and disabled people. Those without the passport can be blamed for the spread of the virus.
This gives the Tories a scapegoat. In reality it is their own fatal failings that are to blame.
We should support vaccination, but oppose vaccine passports.
A new report shows how racist scapegoating influences national opinion
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